As orchestra camp drew to a close on Sunday, I must admit that the camp was a rather good one, and that it had not been condescendingly labelled as a waste of time, unlike its council-organized counterparts. Such a disposition on camps has been a rare one, and I was pleasured enough to have taken part in one such camp, only to further astonish myself later upon realising how I detect faint traces of nostalgia after the camp. I could no longer refuse the appellation of 'enjoyable', even someone as critical as me, who has always had high expectations of everything.
When we returned from the concert on Friday, we went to wash up. Haochun borrowed my toilet in hostel to wash up. Having to stay back on a weekend feels extraordinarily different from a weekday. It is wonderfully peaceful without my roommates around, and I could reside in solitude without the interference from them. Sadly enough we were obviously not allowed to sleep in our rooms, but rather in the classrooms at school. I had not brought any sleeping materials, but it was a fortunately convenience that I was sleeping in 502 classroom, the classroom of pillows. In the middle of the night however, we were rudely awakened to be gathered outside the hall. It was reported that a couple of people were spotted by the public climbing over the gate of our school. The police was present. Me, in my hypnopompic mode, cared like it was something slightly different from other days, but no further than that, despite the potential gravity of the situation. A while later we were sent back to sleep, and I woke up at 6am with freezing feet, desperately waiting for time to past, as I did not know what time it should be before we were allowed to leave the room. At half past six I could no longer tolerate the cold wind from the air-conditioning and lying on the stone hard floor, I returned to my hostel room for a while before reporting at the canteen a while later.
The activities were minimally fresh to me, with tinges of originality, if not fun, or totally apposite for some. The very first activity on a Saturday morning, preparing breakfast, astounded me with its metaphorical relevance to our orchestra hiding beneath its superficially boring, ostensible purpose of filling one's stomach. So many breakfasts, yet only one teacher.
Morning activities could not be more simple than they were. They were, creating 30 second rhythm, painting a group flag and carrying a bucket of water with string. These were exactly the kind of activities which would drain me of my enthusiasm in any other circumstance, but it did not then. It was partly because we were in small groups, which encouraged greater interaction and mingling amongst us, and I had the biased confidence that the orchestra exco was capable of organizing meaningful stuff, proved to be true later.
We had orchestra practice in the afternoon at the concourse. The sweltering heat, together with the dry air, made me feel like I am still in bed, not to mention that I have yet to bathe and was still in my sweat stained sleeping attire. Nevertheless, 3 hours passed faster than I thought I would, which rekindled the idea that having orchestra on the weekends should be a consideration.
In the evening, we heard that we were going to watch a movie, as the night games were not approved by the estate management. It was apparently given away when the announcement was made with a giggly tone. Sure enough, halfway through the movie, the colour on the screen suddenly turned negative, and for a moment I couldn’t tell, and thought that the programme hanged and redirected the movie to its title screen. I was puzzled as to why everyone was screaming, until words started materializing on the screen, claiming to be typed by a spirit who has infected the computer, and through it gives us instructions on the tasks that have to be completed. It was not that frightening, but I have to admit it was rather freaky, especially with everyone around screaming at the peak of their lungs. It was reassuring that I still had Amanda beside me to talk to, without her being preoccupied with screaming. It was sheer madness within the theaterette.
Following that, we went around school in our groups complete stations and solving riddles. I was rather frightened by all the sporadic screaming initially; in fact the screaming was worse than the atmosphere itself, as countless false alarms are raised, only to later realise that people were screaming for nothing. Frankly I thought it was not the best idea to play such games during the seventh month. I was hoping that we could just remain in the theaterette and continue watching that movie instead. Nonetheless, as we worked through more stations, the level of fear subsided and it became quite interesting. The first station, situated in a classroom, was Belinda’s, and her make up and acting skills made the station one of the creepiest. Some others, however, were not that good; they could not quite get into the role, and comically alternated between their real self and their role. In one of the stations, we had to go into the toilets shrouded in darkness searching for puzzle pieces. First time I got to enter a female toilet :P
.The station master got owned a few times. First we found something under the sink which we were not supposed to take. Then, Amanda notice a piece of paper stuck high up on the wall, and so I jumped to take it down. It turned out to be covering the motion sensor, and all the lights came on at once.
In another station we had to go around searching for objects while singing lullabies to a ‘sleeping girl’; it was quite nerve-wrecking to think of the next songs to sing while having to recall the notes and lyrics of the song we were singing. In another we were blindfolded and had to look for each other while avoiding a monster which made jingling sounds. They were activities which I would consider quite creative and original, but unfortunately we had to pack up before completing all the stations.Then it was back to my most dreaded part of the camp. Sleep time. I was so sleepy that I guessed I had fallen asleep in less than five minutes on my makeshift bed from cushions, from how I realised that I did not know the outcome of the chess game Haochun was playing. My bed fell apart in the middle of the night and my sleep got much worst than that on the first day. I woke up before sunrise again and returned to my room for a little rest on my bed. Before I knew it I was asleep, but fortunately woke up just on time to report at the canteen.
After breakfast, we had the amazing race. Speaking of amazing races, I really missed those amazing races we had in lower secondary that were out of school. It is so much fun racing and exploring at the same time. Anyway, there were clues after each station to an action that would have to be performed at the next station. Some of those riddles were quite ingenious. Flying Vitruvian Man – Star Jump. This weapon plays music – Bow.
The first activity we had was quite a common one, but it was unexpectedly engaging. Blind folding ourselves and forming shapes with a piece of long string. It was a small variation from the typical ones done by council, and for some indescribable reason I found this more rapport building; maybe it was not the activity, but the people around, or the time.
In another activity, some team members had to guess words acted out by someone, similar to charades, except that the someone was a puppet, controlled by puppeteers who are the only ones given the words to be guessed. It was quite entertaining to be controlling the puppet from the floor above, feeling hopeless at the inability to make the puppet carry out the desired actions, but yet a sense of wondrous accomplishment when our team members could guess the word.
Aside from the accommodation, I must re-emphasize that the camp was enjoyable. This also triggers me wondering why council and the school in general never stops organizing hackneyed activities. Is it because of the smaller group, such that it is easier to manage, or is there something different about these people who make up the different organizing committees? I would like to believe otherwise, but unfortunately I cannot help but perceiving that there exists differing group cultures.
I went back to my room seeing my roommate again. It was time to swing back into reality and rejoin the bromidic cycle of hostel and school life.
